On 20/12/10 16:30, William Wilson wrote:
> HP sells development kits for most of their cartridges that includes
> an ink cartridge, a cartridge holder with standoff screw mounts,
> a flex cable connected to the cartridge holder, and the tech sheets for
> the cartridge pad connections .
> The price is usually around $30 (US), but for some of their older stuff i=
t is as low as $10 (US).

Sounds like that's exactly what I'm after...

> It's a lower price if you order a bunch of them.
> Just call HP and tell them you need a development kit for whatever cartri=
dge
> you want to use.

Hmm, apparently they're handled by HP's Specialty Printing Systems=20
branch, and there are a few hoops to jump through before they'll even=20
talk to you... one of which is a $1000 "technology licensing fee."

The real gem is the license agreement for this "license":
2.4f: All the grants to Company herein specifically exclude any license=20
to use HP Licensed Patents and HP Confidential Information to make or=20
have made an inkjet printer whose primary function is to imprint=20
variable product data on products, primary and/or intermediate=20
packaging, to imprint variable logistical data on secondary packaging=20
and/or labels intended for package identification [...]

So basically you're not allowed to use it to, say, print serial numbers=20
on boxes. I would have thought that'd be the primary use case for these=20
types of printers... Depending on how they choose to interpret the=20
agreement, printing tracking labels (part number, short description,=20
part location ID) on component boxes could well fall foul of that=20
restriction.

I get the impression that they don't really want to license this=20
technology, but they're doing it in a half-hearted way to try and gain=20
PR points for "forward thinking". (ROFLMAO).

"In the various Hewlett-Packard spinoffs, one constant remained: the HP=20
name always went to the worst part of the company."

> There is also a book out called "Inkjet Applications" by Matt Gilliland t=
hat uses
> the HP 51604a cartridge that will walk you through step by step on how to
> program for that cartridge.

Yeah, I saw that when Parallax announced the book and matching devkit.=20
IIRC they stopped selling them a while ago.

Amazon list it as "out of print, available from Marketplace sellers"...=20
at a price of =A390 a copy! Urrgh!

The Thinkjet cartridge specs, BTW, are in a 1970s HP databook. Can't=20
remember off-hand which one, but I've got scans on my PC (somewhere).=20
Full pinouts, specs and mechanical drawings...

Thanks,
--=20
Phil.
piclist@philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/

--=20
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